[308/366] voting while blind
Nov. 3rd, 2020 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI was part of a radio recording yesterday morning, broadcast tonight, for Radio 4's In Touch, a show for/about visually impaired people.
It was an interesting thing to be a part of over Skype -- at one point, the producer or engineer or someone reassured the host "soon we'll all be back in the studio again" and like yeah I get that the technical difficulties can be fearsome and annoying (as I think they were by the end of this session) but also I'm kind of glad that this way it isn't limited to people in London who can get to the studio at 9:30 in the morning. When it's all back in the studio, it'll be harder for the likes of me to participate.
Again like with ITV the other week I was glad, if a little less surprised with a blind host of a blind show with someone from the RNIB also there, that my story's appreciated even if it's less stereotypical or less serious than the kind of problems faced by the other blind guest, who cannot vote secretly and independently at all. I don't want to sound like I'm whining that people are mean to me. Things like "staff need better training" are so important and would fix so many kinds of problems but it's so dull as a point and people can be unsympathetic to it. So I was relieved I didn't get that impression here.
While it was a pre-record, to go out tonight, it was done "as live," which means I got to hear basically the whole show from start to nearly-finish (because of the technical difficulties) and not just be asked about my little bit. It was interesting to see what the different guests contributed and how the RNIB and government people responded to what me and the other blind voter said about our experiences. And it was interesting to see how the whole thing fit together, with little behind-the-scenes chatter going on at various points. At the beginning one of the other guests said she didn't catch someone's name and it turned out to be mine, so I told her "Hi Holly" instead of "Hi I'm Holly" but hilarious off-air rookie mistakes like that aside, I think I did okay. Haven't listened to it yet, though. (I kinda want to but the prospect of some other voting thing going on today is making me too anxious to actually want to just yet.)
It was an interesting thing to be a part of over Skype -- at one point, the producer or engineer or someone reassured the host "soon we'll all be back in the studio again" and like yeah I get that the technical difficulties can be fearsome and annoying (as I think they were by the end of this session) but also I'm kind of glad that this way it isn't limited to people in London who can get to the studio at 9:30 in the morning. When it's all back in the studio, it'll be harder for the likes of me to participate.
Again like with ITV the other week I was glad, if a little less surprised with a blind host of a blind show with someone from the RNIB also there, that my story's appreciated even if it's less stereotypical or less serious than the kind of problems faced by the other blind guest, who cannot vote secretly and independently at all. I don't want to sound like I'm whining that people are mean to me. Things like "staff need better training" are so important and would fix so many kinds of problems but it's so dull as a point and people can be unsympathetic to it. So I was relieved I didn't get that impression here.
While it was a pre-record, to go out tonight, it was done "as live," which means I got to hear basically the whole show from start to nearly-finish (because of the technical difficulties) and not just be asked about my little bit. It was interesting to see what the different guests contributed and how the RNIB and government people responded to what me and the other blind voter said about our experiences. And it was interesting to see how the whole thing fit together, with little behind-the-scenes chatter going on at various points. At the beginning one of the other guests said she didn't catch someone's name and it turned out to be mine, so I told her "Hi Holly" instead of "Hi I'm Holly" but hilarious off-air rookie mistakes like that aside, I think I did okay. Haven't listened to it yet, though. (I kinda want to but the prospect of some other voting thing going on today is making me too anxious to actually want to just yet.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-04 02:19 pm (UTC)I'm hoping that we all realise that this sort of thing (and remote working too) are things we should keep!
Glad it went fairly smoothly.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-05 07:15 pm (UTC)Although the other time I was on Radio 4 I just had to get a tram to Salford and I was put in a little booth there all by myself, I think the other guests were actually with the presenter in London. That was a lot of fun, and at least doesn't rule out quite so many people in the country.
Good job.
Date: 2020-11-04 06:15 pm (UTC)Listening now ... what a great piece this is.
To connect with this level of information in the U.S. would require knowing about ACB/NFB and hunting it down.
Do you happen to know if radio reading services available over the internet or are they still geographically limited by state in the U.S.?
Re: Good job.
Date: 2020-11-05 07:18 pm (UTC)As far as I know, radio reading services are a U.S. thing and not a UK thing, but I'm not really their target audience anyway so I can't be sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-05 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-05 07:20 pm (UTC)